The provenance of this recording is somewhat obscure. Recording dates are listed as 1992-2004, and it’s billed as an SACD remastering of an original quadraphonic master. Whatever has been done, however, sounds quite good, with a big orchestral sound filling a naturally reverberant performance space. The rear channels aren’t annoyingly prominent, internal balances make sense, and the Philharmonia Hungarica plays the music very well. Jan Valach’s interpretations are middle-of-the-road romantic, with well-chosen tempos and shapely phrasing for the lovely tunes in the Largo. He doesn’t take the first-movement exposition repeat (he should have), and a bit more energy in the finale would not have been amiss, but otherwise this is a very respectable effort. Having the Fibich tone poem as a coupling–well-wrought music just slightly anonymous in style–also is very welcome and unexpected. Regarding the packaging, Talent needs to proofread better–the New World’s scherzo is marked simply “molto”–and the notes are skimpy; but given the surprisingly good music making I can’t dismiss this release out of hand. If you find the program attractive, you may want to give it a shot.
